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New Gangster Squad Poster Has Guns, Cigarettes And Fire

The new poster forGangster Squad has arrived and is carrying on the recent trend of retro artwork. The film takes place in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles, as the LAPD fights to keep out Sean Penn’s East Coast Mafioso from the city.

As the film is a period piece set to recreate a specific decade, the promotional material has been granted the same treatment. It meshes the film poster style of a classical era and its matching iconography (guns, cigarettes and objectified women) with a modern cast. You can have a gander below.

Straddling either side of the frame are Ryan Gosling and Pierce Brosnan Josh Brolin. Gosling sits smoking a cig, while Brolin is subjected to a singed armpit from the flames of the central motif. Sean Penn, situated top centre stage brandishing a tommy gun that looks like the hand brake from my Mum’s old car, holds the group together as the clear villain. Well, he is positioned directly above a group of men we can only assume are his adversaries who are doused in flame, and who else likes to set people on fire? Yes. Beelzebub.

To the bottom right of the frame stands Emma Stone who appears to be doing a Joan Crawford-as-Mildred Pierce impersonation. Seeing as “Thunder Shoulders” Crawford was in pictures during the period in which the film is set, it’s possible they worked her into the film. Maybe to shout at Penn’s gangster about coat hangers or open up a restaurant without any background in hospitality.

After re-consideration following the mistimed placing of the second trailer, the release date for Gangster Squad has now been pushed to January. Whether scenes have been edited or removed entirely will no doubt be a topic for discussion nearer to the time.

Director Ruben Fleischer who also helmed Zombieland and 30 Seconds Or Less has assembled an absolute corker of a cast. In addition to those featured on the poster, we’ll see Nick Nolte, Mireille Enos, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Pena and the T-1000.